The lunatics are now in charge

Not all ideas are equally valid, and not all beliefs are equally true. There is reality and there is fantasy.

A heavy dose of “both sides are valid” denial of reality has set up the United States of America for the dangerous moment in which we now find ourselves. Too many “nice” people have been too afraid for too long to call out dangerous fringe beliefs that have made their way to the top offices of state and federal government.

Now people are going to pay with their physical health and even their lives for letting lunacy go unchecked. And yes, I am using that word intentionally. “Lunacy” means insanity, extreme folly or eccentricity. Lunacy is believing something is true when it is, instead, patently false.

Of all the horrors the Trump administration has brought us, the one most dangerous to the most people right now is the elevation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the position of secretary of the Department of Health and Human Service. Kennedy is a lunatic. He is not mentally competent. He espouses beliefs about health that are the very definition of folly.

But we knew that when he was nominated by Donald Trump. Republicans in the Senate knew that when they overlooked his well-documented falsehoods to confirm him to the post out of fear of denying Trump anything he wanted. Kennedy’s 52-48 confirmation was upheld by every Republican senator save one — Mitch McConnell, who is a polio survivor.

These Republicans who are hell-bent on saving every unborn fetus apparently do not care — once again — about the lives of already living children and their parents who will be maimed and, in some cases, die because of the anti-vaxx insanity that is now dominating HHS and the Food and Drug Administration.

“Kennedy’s 52-48 confirmation was upheld by every Republican senator save one — Mitch McConnell, who is a polio survivor.”

I write as someone who just last week had COVID and yet now — because I am not yet 65 — will have to get a doctor’s prescription to get the next COVID booster vaccination. The new rules promulgated by the FDA — which are intentionally confusing in order to deter vaccination — are the fantasies of Kennedy and his merry band of anti-vaxxers. The chaos is the point.

Let us be clear: The professional medical community and the professional scientific community know vaccines are safe and save lives. They know the conspiracy theories are fake news. This is not a matter of dispute. This is not a both-sides argument. There is only one truth here — and that truth has been sent packing from federal government by those who voted for Trump and those who voted to confirm Kennedy.

If you’ve not been outraged yet, now would be a good time to hop on board. The very people who constantly scream about individual choice are not allowing individuals to make their own choices about vaccines. In the case of COVID boosters, they are intentionally making it harder to get treated. And they are endangering the vast majority of the population who know vaccines work but will be made susceptible by those who deny reality.

This is lunacy.

And now, emboldened by the feds, Florida’s nuttier-than-a-fruitcake surgeon general has declared unilaterally that he will cancel all vaccine mandates — including for children in schools. He had the audacity to compare vaccine mandates to slavery and said God will be pleased with his decision.

“He had the audacity to compare vaccine mandates to slavery and said God will be pleased with his decision.”

Joseph Ladapo said of vaccine mandates that have kept schools and workplaces safe for decades, “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”

“Who am I as a government or anyone else, who am I as a man standing here now, to tell you what you should put in your body? Lapado said. “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in (their) body? I don’t have that right.”

He and his allies sure seem to believe they have that right when it comes to women and pregnancy. Funny how all the fuss is only about vaccines.

I don’t know how to say it any better than Richard Besser, a former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: “The idea that children would be allowed to go to school unvaccinated is absolutely frightening.”

In a word, lunacy.

Ladapo previously has said skepticism of vaccines shows “reflections of God’s light against the darkness of tyranny and oppression.”

He was appointed to this position of power by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who also knew in advance Ladapo held insane views on vaccines.

The anti-vaxx movement has been and remains a fringe world of unproved conspiracies rejected wholesale by the medical and scientific communities. Yet authoritarians like Trump and DeSantis need to appeal to that fringe element to stay in power — while everyone else just looks away and will not challenge the lies.

If you’ve remained on the sidelines, now is the time your voice needs to be heard. Kennedy and all those who came into power with him need to be sent packing. Tell your senators and U.S. representatives. And if you live in Florida, it’s time to get Ladapo booted from office before he kills more children.

Most of all, if you consider yourself “pro-life,” take a stand on the side of life for those already born and not just embryos in a womb. There is life in truth-telling, but there is death in lunacy.

 

Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global and is the author of five books, including Honestly: Telling the Truth About the Bible and Ourselves. He is co-host with Benjamin Cole of the podcast “Stuck in the Middle with You.”